Vanya (Zach Fike Hodges) makes an appeal to Yelena (Shelby Flannery) as Waffles (Amen Igbinosun) watches and Professor Serebryakov (Colin Buckingham) reads in Krymov Lab NYC production at La MaMa (photo by Marina Levitskaya)
UNCLE VANYA, SCENES FROM COUNTRY LIFE
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
Tuesday – Sunday through April 12, $10-$60
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org
“When I was supposed to have a master class at Hunter College and I was preparing and I decided to look at Uncle Vanya, the scenes I was going to use for that master class, all of a sudden I felt nauseated,” Dmitry Krymov said at a talkback following the April 1 matinee of Uncle Vanya, scenes from country life at La MaMa, where he pointed out how everything had changed since Russia invaded Ukraine. He was in Philadelphia at the time, preparing The Cherry Orchard, and has been unable to return to his home country ever since. “I felt this is the food I put in the refrigerator many, many years ago, and I’m warming it up over and over again. I was so mad at myself for doing so that I decided to do what you just saw. That was the idea. I jumped in my bed. That’s what you were seeing right now. What you just saw was a work of my imagination at that particular moment.”
And what an imagination Krymov has. His new play is not a reimagination or a reinvention of Chekhov’s 1898 tragicomedy but a glorious explosion of its innards. Krymov shifts the focus to Yelena (Shelby Flannery), who spends most of the show sitting near the front of the stage in her knickers, the rest of the characters seated in a semicircle behind her. A city denizen, Yelena does not want to be in the country, instantly uncomfortable as she is harassed by flies and frightened by the sounds of wild animals nearby. Over the course of ninety inspired minutes, she is approached by Dr. Astrov (Javier Molina), an environmental activist who is in love with her; her husband, Professor Serebryakov (Colin Buckingham), who owns the family estate; Vanya (Zach Fike Hodges), the brother of the professor’s late wife who has no life outside the estate; Sonya (Natalie Battistone), daughter of the professor’s late wife who works with Vanya and is worried about becoming a spinster; Waffles (Amen Igbinosun), a simple-minded man who lives on the estate, faithful to the spouse who abandoned him years before for another man; Vanya’s controlling mother (Anya Zicer); the stern nanny (Tim Eliot) who makes a terrifying chicken soup; and a hen (MaryKate Glenn) wearing pink bunny slippers and a rooster (Sasha Drey) who plays the acoustic guitar.
The existence of the hen and rooster serves as a microcosm of Krymov’s approach to the narrative. In the original play, at one point the nanny calls out to the chickens on the estate and tells Sonya, “The speckled hen has disappeared with her chicks. I am afraid the crows have got her.” Krymov turns that brief mention into a heart-wrenching subplot. The two costumes are hilarious until they’re not, when the actors remove at least part of them. Meanwhile, the set is a long vertical rectangular slightly rising white platform that leads to a large horizontal canvas in the back on which designer Emona Stoykova has painted a rough black-and-white country scene inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s last painting, “Wheatfield with Crows,” evoking not only the killer crows but the tragedy of Van Gogh’s suicide by gun — the firearm a mainstay of Chekhovian drama and something that Krymov also turns inside out and upside down.
Eventually, Vanya gets tired of not being the center of attention and screams out, “I am the main character of this play! . . . THIS PLAY IS ABOUT ME! IT’S CALLED UNCLE VANYA. NOT UNCLE PROFESSOR, NOT UNCLE DOCTOR, NOT UNCLE SONYA, NOT UNCLE WHAT’S HIS NAME OR WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS. NOT UNCLE MAMA, NOT UNCLE CHICKEN. IT’S UNCLE VANYA. ME!”
However, this is Dmitry Krymov’s Uncle Vanya, not Anton Chekhov’s, as evidenced most defiantly by an utterly brilliant finale.
A hen (MaryKate Glenn) and Yelena (Shelby Flannery) take a smoking break in Uncle Vanya, scenes from country life (photo by Marina Levitskaya)
Writer-director Krymov has assembled a terrific team to pull off this bewitching, circuslike production, every element pulling rabbits out of hats, with costumes by Luna Gomberg, puppets by Leah Ogawa, lighting by Krista Smith, sound by Denis Zabikaya, projections by Yana Biryukova, and impressive dramaturgy by Shari Perkins. The cast is exceptional, led by Flannery as a complex Yelena, who adds depth to a role often performed as a knowing seductress, and Glenn as the unforgettable Hen, who will break your heart.
The play is also heavily influenced by the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the characters search for their identity and place in an ever-more-dangerous world, where potential violence hovers around every corner and love and connection are not easy to come by. At the talkback, Krymov was near tears several times when he spoke fondly about his former home and answered questions from members of the audience watching from Russia (and other countries) on a livestream.
Krymov previously presented his unique takes on Ernest Hemingway and Eugene O’Neill in Three Love Stories Near the Railroad and Alexander Pushkin in Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” in our own words.
I can’t wait to see what magic he has in store for us next.